02 Feb The State of our District

I watched the State of the Union address this week and couldn’t help thinking about the State of our District.

The President bragged about low unemployment rates as if that meant all was well. The problem here is the quality of jobs, not their number. We need good jobs, not dead-end employment for low wages and no benefits without family or sick leave. No one should have to work two jobs to get by.

The President boasted that the Dow Jones Industrial Average has gone up. Whoopee. The problem is size of our salaries, not the stock exchange index. Wages have been stagnant for 90 percent of us for the last forty years.

The President claimed that he had lowered our taxes. He did not. He passed a bill that will raise our taxes in a few years and disastrously eliminates the State and Local Tax Deduction we rely on. He slashed taxes on corporations already not paying their share and cut Medicare funding.

The President hailed his foreign policy. It has been a disaster. He has stoked conflict overseas in Jerusalem and with North Korea and Iran. He has undermined our institutions at home. My former colleagues are quitting our diplomatic service in droves, weakening us as a nation.

The State of the Union is not well. The State of our District is not better. We need a congressperson ready to state these facts and act to bring progress here now.

There is an answer to our crises. The answer is progressive platform that builds our county and empowers more than 90 percent of our citizens. We must stand up to enact Medicare for All, pass a Green New Deal in sustainable energy jobs, and increase Social Security benefits.

Progressives are rallying to our message and word is spreading.

Here are the exact details on the support we are building: We’ve been endorsed by the Greene County chapter of New York’s Bernie Sanders Network (now known as the New York Progressive Action Network). A straw poll of members of the Dutchess Progressive Action Alliance voted our campaign the most progressive in this race. That group has not made a formal endorsement. Other local groups and Our Revolution’s national leadership are still surveying the race.

A major endorsement has come in and is building our campaign daily: Justice Democrats, a national organization of former Bernie Sanders staffers, endorsed our campaign and is providing extensive support. Volunteers are working for our campaign in a grassroots network across all eleven counties.

More and more people are deciding each day that we can and must do this ourselves. We must revive the Democratic Party, bring a new generation into politics and make ours the party of working people and patriots that it was for generations.

That is how we will take on and decisively defeat John Faso.

Thank you for your support and onward in this movement for the working people of our home.